Y’know, my frequent bouts with various stomach ailments have finally been diagnosed in a possible pre-ulcer condition. Last week, the doctor took blood samples and had the lab do a variety of tests, most of which proved I’m fairly healthy. But my H. pylori antibodies were high, so he has prescribed for me a two-week course designed to utterly destroy the evil, ulcer-causing bacteria.
The thing is, this drug regimen is probably the suckiest, worst regimen I have ever had to undergo. Four pills (large ones!) twice a day, three of which are two separate antiobiotics, one of which is amoxicillin, which has previously had negative consequences on my digestive tract. So I take these four horse-pills before breakfast, then again twelve hours later, and man, something’s leaving this nasty aftertaste (I blame the antibiotics) throughout the day.
On the other hand, it ought to get rid of the evil, nasty, ulcer-causing H. pylori that dares reside in my duodenum. So, in Jewish mother parlance, I’ll suffer.
There is a battle going on in my innards. The barbarians are going to be beaten back, and peace (and a calm stomach) will be restored.
H. pylori must die.
Ask your internist whether active-culture yogurt will mitigate the amoxicillin’s effects.
chsw
Just take the yogurt a couple of hours after the anti-biotics otherwise the culture will be killed. There are “Probiotics” capsules with the required fauna to fix the “ecological” disaster in the making.
In Israel they have a neat breath test for H. Pylori.
One breathes into a tube which is sealed, then one is given a powder which is mixed in plain orange juice and after a wait of half an hour one breathes into another tube. They measure the difference in the 13CO2 isotope in one’s breath.
The breath test has been available for many years here in the States; it’s very difficult to perform and is not very reliable. The blood test is real good. The good news is that the antibiotic treatment has a very high cure rate. The other good news is that yogurt or buttermilk can replace the lactobacillus which is killed off by the amoxicillin, resuling in the colorful effects that you will hopefully get through easily. The bad news, from my point of view at least, is that you actually have to ingest yogurt or buttermilk…